Varmint

No, not a vegan and not a vegetarian. It's just seafood or fowl for her. A turkey burger sounds damn good, on a hearty whole wheat roll. That's a great idea. Thanks for the advice!

The excitement of this thread is too much to bear. Maybe I need to pull out those old compromising photos of Fat Guy to generate some excitement. Ick, forget that. So, last night it was a vegetable plate: small baked potato with cottage cheese, parmesan and fresh chives; heirloom tomato salad with EVOO, sea salt, garlic and feta; broccoli with oyster sauce; and diced portabellas sauteed with garlic, fresh thyme, and some leftover barbera. I had a banana for dessert later that night. For breakfast, it was two slices of whole grained toast with a small schmear of buttah. Lunch. Ugh. I had to give a seminar at a hotel today and got stuck with bad hotel food. Small green salad with ranch dressing. Pasta was served with a dreadful cream sauce with a scattering of veggies. I followed the rule of "don't eat mediocre food" and ate perhaps a third of this. It was really disgusting, but I can honestly say that I would have eaten all of it two weeks ago. I then polished off the chocolate cake they served for dessert because, well, it was cake. I did inform you that I'm not dieting, didn't I??? I need to do something tasty for dinner, but my brain is fried. This is the night I'd usually do Chinese or Mexican. I'm tired and don't want to cook. Salad doesn't sound good. Maybe I'll check the eGullet recipe archive! This presents a good question: when you're tired as hell and don't want to shop or cook anything that takes longer than 20 minutes, what do you make for yourself and your loved one? I've always relied on pasta, but I've got to get that out of my routine. Once in awhile is fine, but I've already had (repulsive) pasta today. Haven't been on the scales in a couple of days. I'm sure that my weight loss has slowed down. I believe I'm still making good decisions, which will show up in the long run (and that's what this is all about, right?).

Zebster's always yanking my chain. Someone on this site has to do it, I guess. By the way, it's been nearly 6 hours since my lunch, and I'm still not hungry. Although laarb would be a good dinner choice!

SOTHP- Can you provide us more details why your group thought the Sugar Shack was so extraordinary? What kind of ribs? What kind of sauce? Wet? Dry rub? Details, please!!!! Thanks.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, Zebster. The last time I went to the doctors, I was measured at 5 feet, 11-3/4 inches. That's a quarter inch shy of 6 feet. Bring on the measuring tape! I've met him, and I can attest to the fact that he is several inches taller than me. I'm 5'5" so you can do the math. He must be growing then. I worked with him for years, and he certainly wasn't 6 feet tall. Now, he associated with tall people in college, but that just doesn't count. Maybe it's those platform shoes he's been seen wearing lately . . . Geesh, I'm getting into a battle about my height! I think there's a perception that I'm shorter than I am because of the relatively disproportionate "width" I carry. Do I have to pull out my police mug shot . . . oops, strike that. I'll just get a doctor to certify it. By the way, if I'm not going to lie about my 228 pounds, I sure as hell wouldn't like about my height!

For those really have no life and wanted to know about today's meals, I offer the following: Breakfast of Multigrain Cheerios and some skim milk. Lunch of a small eggplant, sundried tomato and blue cheese pizza with a side salad and a spot of ranch dressing. Diet Coke. Dinner will be light tonight, as I'm working late. This was a typical lunch for me, and in the past, it left me a bit hungry. I feel stuffed today. Very good news.

Varmint is more than "just under" six feet I'm not sure what you're getting at, Zebster. The last time I went to the doctors, I was measured at 5 feet, 11-3/4 inches. That's a quarter inch shy of 6 feet. Bring on the measuring tape!

Thanks for catching that, Ron! I've been mostly out of pocket the past couple of days and haven't been doing my job.

Half a sandwich at the gelateria, followed, of course, with a small scoop of hazlenut and a small scoop of coconut. Yum. See, I am not about to deprive myself. We then went to my sister-in-law's for dinner and we had a funky chicken, shrimp and mushroom dish in a great wine sauce. Very light and very good. Lots of green beans and salad. No bread. No pasta. I had less dessert than my 2 year old, and I felt stuffed. Could it be my stomach is shrinking? I have not felt overly hungry since I started this. Even though I'm drinking a gallon of water a day, I'm starting to have to go to the bathroom less frequently, too. I still have a nagging cough and slightly sore throat, so that's keeping me from exercising (I'm giving a rousing seminar tomorrow about health privacy laws tomorrow, so I can't take chances on my voice). Perhaps by Wednesday. This weekend is our firm's annual retreat. It often ends up with folks drinking way too much, but perhaps my discipline will carry over to the areas of imbibement. Perhaps not!

Man, I'm really into this lifestyle change thing. I usually eat like a madman on Friday evenings, as I'm ready to cook a big meal and pig out. I swung by the farmers' market and the fishmongers and made a simple shrimp, EVOO, garlic, lemon and caper sautee. My wife and our friend got it on some homemade spinach linguine. I had one-fifth of the linguine, plus we had sliced tomatoes. I ate no desire to eat bread. A small scoop of homemade coffee ice cream finished the meal. Very good meal. Yesterday was hot. That made it easier to eat less, as I was outside a lot, drank a ton of water, and generally lacked an appetite. I ate a chicken breast for lunch at a picnic. That's all -- no potato salad, no brownies, nothing else. I didn't want anything else. For dinner I made Mrs. Varmint and me a big salad -- again, it was so hot that I didn't want anything heavy. Granted, it was a fried chicken salad on locally grown lettuce, but it was still fairly light. I had no interest in dessert. This morning was the big test, as the kids wanted Krispy Kreme. I ate one, along with a big cappuccino. That's some kind of record for me. I'm discovering that once I started forcing myself to eat less, that my appetite has diminished. Now, we'll be going to lunch at this awesome gelataria, so my day will be shot, but it's for Mrs. Varmint, and it is Mother's Day, you know!

The name must have taken a crackerjack marketing staff months to develop. Yes, it's "The Beer Machine" (and I'm not referring to Schielke here, either): http://www.beermachine.com

I used to follow that method. I only did it on days that ended in the letter "y".

OK, everyone, repeat after me: I am not dieting. I am adjusting some bad eating habits. I am not dieting. I am adjusting some bad eating habits. I am not dieting. I am adjusting some bad eating habits. I am not dieting. I am adjusting some bad eating habits. I am not dieting. I am adjusting some bad eating habits. If it's just a diet, then it will ultimately fail. If I change my habits, I'm much more likely to succeed. With my job and schedule, I'm pretty much stuck on the 3 meals a day routine. That's fine with me. It works with lots of folks across the country. Lower intake. Yes, my metabolism may slow down (although it's at a pace of a three-toed sloth right now). I'll also have fewer cravings for sweets and breads and other silly things. At least, I hope that's the case.

Vengroff is 6 feet 4-1/2 inches, I believe he told me (along with his weight, as he wanted to race me). As far as the rapidity of the weight loss, a lot of that is due to my strep throat this week. Plus, if I put my mind to it, I can drop 5 pounds in a day or two. That's not what I'm trying to do. It's making good decisions. I went to lunch today with friends. They ate burgers. I didn't deprive myself, as I had a Cobb salad. Not all that healthy. But I didn't eat the rolls that were served with it and I drank water. In the past, I would have eaten several rolls, or I would have gotten the 8 ounce burger with bacon, cheese, mayo, etc. with lots of fries -- and a Coke, too! I'll have seafood and lots of veggies for dinner tonight. As you can see, the one choice I'm making is to reduce my overall consumption of bread and rice. If I cut back 50%, that'll make a huge difference. I'll still eat breads for breakfast, of course. As far as exercise is concerned, I'd like to exercise more often, but here's my schedule: On days that I exercise, I get up at 5:00. I'm on the treadmill for 40 minutes or so. I then shower and help get the L'il Varmints up at 6:30. I make their breakfasts, help the younger ones get ready, and we're off to work, school and daycare at 7:30. I don't get home most days until 7:00. I play with the children for the half hour that I have. I then make dinner for my wife and me. We eat at 8:00. I'm in bed by 10 to 10:30 at the latest. On the days I don't exercise, I sleep in until 5:30 to 5:45. I truly make an effort to exercise both days on the weekends, but that's dependent on the family's overall schedule. With ballet, soccer, tae kwon do, piano, homework, blah, blah, blah, it gets pretty hectic. Plus, the weekend is the time I can do some cooking. Finally, basketball. My firm pays for us to play basketball once a month. We could do it more often, but I do this more for a social outlet than as exercise (although it's easily the best workout I get). We're highly unlikely to get together more frequently than once a month.

Or just one slice of Chicago Deep Dish pizza!!

Did you know a dry plain bagel has 400 calories? I thought not since you were worried about 39 calories in gum. I'm not trying to do anything majorly dramatic from my typical eating habits, but I'm more focused on quantity. Yes, I'm aware about the evils of bagels. But at our law firm, Friday is "bagel day," and we have pretty decent bagels brought in. I'm not going to deprive myself of my Friday bagel fix. I did eat just one, and I'm very comfortable with that. Plus, I didn't eat any of the doughnuts that were also brought in today. Thus, I guess you can say that I actually cut out 400 to 600 calories this morning. BTW, I am not a calorie counter. I don't think I really "worry" about calories. I only think about the caloric content of things that I don't usually think of as food, such as sore throat lozenges and gumballs. Those are things I hadn't considered before, but it still adds to the final toll. More importantly, as evidenced with the bagel rationing of this morning, it's about portion control. F'rinstance, I still had some ice cream again last night, but it was a paltry amount compared to the mountain in Mrs. Varmint's bowl!!! I had no problem with that.

On Monday morning I weighed a whopping 228 pounds. This morning, I weighed a still whopping 223 pounds. Yeah, it's 5 pounds, but I'm not jumping up and down in excitement. First, I can drop 5 pounds without a hell of a lot of effort. Second, I've been sick all week, so my appetite was suppressed. Nevertheless, it's a damn good start. Obviously, the test will be whether I can stay on track. I've really done a great job of eating less, which will be the key for long term maintenance. I need to avoid the desire to eat 2 bagels rather than the 1 I need. I don't need half a pint of ice cream. This weekend will be a bit of a test, but I'm up for it! In the meantime, I'll just stick with the plan. Thanks for your support.

The South is, first and foremost, an agricultural society. Until the interstate system of the Eisenhower administration, the South was also fairly remote. Cities were often located around market centers, not necessarily waterways or other traditional locales. The South was poor, and Southerners made as much as it could out of very little and took great pride in what the land provided for them. With the arrival of air conditioning and increased ease of transportion, the South began to lose many of its traditions. The fast-paced urban world of business and convenience displaced the farmers and slow-cooked food. Biscuits started coming from a can and barbecue establishments discovered electric and gas cookers. Fortunately, however, we recognized before it was too late what a wonderful heritage we have here, something worth saving. Like grandma's banana cake or Miss Katherine's watermelon rind pickles. A paper thin slice of Smithfield Ham on a buttermilk biscuit. And yes, a vegetable plate. This is our South and your South, too. I think you'll like it here.

Of course, you don't have a problem with that, do you???

Of course, the official name is "Joe's Place featuring Joe's Mom's Cooking." What's nice about this veggy plate is it's "endless." If you want 14 servings of okra, you'll get it. The vegetables are pretty fresh, the sweet potatoes are better than dessert, and yes, the tea glass is about a quart.

Oh my!

Lunch today was a single slice of left-over pizza, some good sopprasetta and cacciocavallo (sp?), and 3 sticks of celery. It's nice to have only a 4 minute commute, as eating lunch at home is easy. I also had 2 gumballs this afternoon. Did you know that the 1 inch Dubble Bubble gumballs have 39 calories each?? I do now. Damn. I sound less like Brenda Vaccarro today and more like Harvey Fierstein. It's a slow improvement. WEIGH-IN TOMORROW!!

Mmmm, grits. Mmmmm, polenta. Just call it gritlenta. The difference here is that I serve "polenta" when I have an Italian-themed meal. I serve grits the rest of the time. Many low-country specialties have a grits component. I make grits/polenta/corn mush soft and thick. Fried and baked. It's an interesting thickener in some stews. I make it with cheese, butter, cream and any combination of the three. I scent it with different aromatic herbs. Bacon and other cured meats are always good. It takes well to tomatoes, the dried variety, too. Mushrooms are excellent with grits. Grits alone may not appear to be exciting, but well made with a thick pat of butter. T'ain't many better ways to start a day, unless you have some red-eye gravy to go with that. The one thing I like about making gritlenta is that I almost always have someone else make it for me. It's as simple as it gets, but it needs fairly constant attention.

I never make Indian food at home, but I'm anxious to learn! I go out for the mediocre Indian food that's offered here about once every other month. My children have yet to be exposed to Indian food. That is probably because there's none very close to my home. However, I eventually plan to introduce it to them a dish at a time. Some of it they'll love right away, whereas other stuff will be very strange to them. The L'il Varmints are still young, so they can be trained!

I don't necessarily get tired of that question, but I'm not the food editor of a major city's newspaper, either! However, I do think that people outside of the South ignore our region's culinary relevance. Let me make myself perfectly clear: The culinary history, legacy and relevance of the South is the strongest of any region in the United States. I'll try my darnedest as moderator of this forum to demonstrate that this statement is correct. And this legacy is being carried on today by some of the top chefs in the country who would make a killing in New York, but they just don't want to live there. Yes, we are more than the some of our parts, and no, we don't have an inferiority complex. We know what we have and we like it. Some day, the others will learn. And Jason, we'll take you to those other places, too!